Two steps forward, one step back

Well my nose has kicked my ass recently.  What started as a slow drip nose bleed turned into a raging torrent.  The day after thanksgiving I swallowed allot of my own blood.  I don't know what the medical term for this is but it can't be good to ingest you own blood.  I started feeling week. Heart racing. That kind of thing.

It was probably the booze I drank on Thanksgiving day that thinned out my blood and caused the bleeding.  Those two whiskys I had when I got home Thanksgiving evening were the nails in the coffin. Friday when I got home from work I poured the remaining whiskey down the drain.

So that's it.  I am officially on the wagon through the holidays.  And beyond.

New Glasses

          Ray Ban                                     Perry Ellis  

The plan is coming together.

I haven't worn glasses all of these years cause my nose was too crooked. So I got my nose fixed which has the double benefit of allowing my to breath and allowing me to see.

I went to Target to get my glasses. Gotta say that it was a pretty good experience. They did the exam, honored my insurance, applied the discounts and cut the lenses very quickly.

Chris the guy behind the counter was great. For some reason or another my Target card was regected.  I called the Target credit center and they were unable to help, which meant I would have to pay on a credit card rather than with the Target debit card.  Which sucked cause I was going to lose the Target cards 5% discount. Chris came through for me.  He put it on my credit card and took 5% off of the top.

Michigan Avenue Morning Lights

This morning I had a strong desire to pedal downtown and shoot video of the Michigan Avenue Xmas lights before the traffic arrived. Well as it turns out the municipal Xmas lights are off in the morning. Fucking obvious right? Yeah, well I didn't find out till I rode down.  Here and there, there were some lights on, which I got.


I like hitting Mich Ave in the early morning cause I can pedal around without pedestrians stepping out in front of me or taxi's trying to run me over. Some kind of festival was being set up at the Tribune plaza around the Marilyn. Millennium Park has no security in the morning so I was able to ride my bike up to the ice rink which has ice on it, and around the Crown Fountain on the south end of the park. Can't do that later in the day. My final shots were at the Art Institute.




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The Drake Michigan Avenue The Magnificant Mile The Mag Mile The Hancock The John Hancock Building Firehouse CFD Watertower Disney Store Mickey Mouse Apple Store Chicago Tribune Plaza Marilyn Monroe Michigan Avenue Bridge Millenium Park Ice Rink Ice Skating Rink Crown Fountain Chicago Art Institute christmas lights xmas lights chicago chitown midwest illinois il willis tower sears tower great america woodfield mall pizza hot dog lake michigan best awesome amazing fantastic christmas lights griswald clark griswold people santa snow christmas vacation christmas carol holiday holidays xmas thanksgiving jesus winter easter gift hanukkah x-mas kwanza kwanzaa christmas tree 

A City Needs a Car Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle

Yesterday morning I got up early. At around five. It was one of the last nice days of the year, so I hopped on the bike and headed south.  A roundtrip ride to the Chicago Museum Campus is around 18 miles. That's a nice way to start the day. Kicks up my matabolism.

It was about 6:30 am when I took off south on the Chicago Lake Shore Bike Path. Turns out there's a fair amount of people on the path at that time of the day. Joggers, dog walkers and commuters heading down to work. Must be nice to ride the bike to work. Sure beats sitting in a traffic jam.

At the museum campus, I set up a camera mount on my bicycle's handlebars. Rather than shooting video I shot a series of stills. My editing software allows me to string them along into video. I started shooting at the Shedd Aquarium. As it turned out the photos I shot at the beginging got pushed to the end of the video.

Originally I was only going to put a bicycle pedal sound track on with the animated photos, but the video was too long and too dry. I tried something new here. I broke the sequence into smaller segments. For each segment I layed on a voice over track. I then edited down the segments around the narative. Finally I found I could lay on the bike pedal sound track and  push it back in the mix.

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Morning Yoga

The Good News:
I feel fully recovered from nasal surgery.

The Bad News:    
Downward Dog gave me a nose bleed.

Millennium Park - Pritzker Pavilion

First off I want to acknowledge the creator of the sound recording.


I found the Wav file on the Audio Cookbook website.The specific file I used was http://audiocookbook.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/orchestra_tuning.mp3. The artist listed on the file is John Keston.


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chicago Millennium Park Jay Pritzker Pavilion bandshell Frank Gehry  stainless steel Petrillo Music Shell Harris Theater  Music Dance performing arts backstage Grant Park Symphony Orchestra Chicago Park District Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs rock band classical musicians opera singers physical fitness yoga festival rehearsals Grant Park rock band show pit gig festival party guitar live dance performance crowd music rock bandcrowd classical beethoven composer instrument violin concert piano

Cloud Gate Train - Chicago's Millennium Park - The Bean

When I was a child on the family road trip I would stare at trees as they spun past the car window. Walking, the trees didn't spin. It was only the speed of the family car that showed me the rotation. So I got to thinking about walking around an object while taking a series of photos. With each step, the snap of a new photo. In sequence, a turning motion would be revealed.


Then there was the matter of sound. The sound needed to be mechanical.  I couldn't record a car going by. Car tires are to high pitched. Tires whine on the pavement. What I needed was a rumble.


I needed the sound of a train. I took my sound recorder over to the CTA El Tracks to get that sound.  I thought about going up to the station but that wasn't the sound. Down below the tracks in between stations, that was the sound. The sound started in the distance. It built as the train approached, thundered with the train over head, then diminished to silent.




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Big Blue Sculpture - Idiot Yuppie Neighbors are Upset

I read on Yahoo about a new sculpture by John Henry in the neighborhood.  Typical of any public art installation it was frowned upon by the local residents and the idiot media.  The local press sticks a microphone in front of Joanne Public and next thing you know the reporters are repeating the exact same idiotic negative language about a significant piece of semi-public art. 

Nobody liked the Picasso in Daley plaza.  Now it is part of Chicago's iconography.  The Oldenburg, the Chagall, the Miro, and the Calder all met with similar fates. We live in Chicago, not Bumfuck. Chicago is world class.  World class means world class art, and in the case of the new sculpture up in Lincoln Park, it means the Artist John Henry.  

So next time a piece of artwork shows up, shut your trap, google the artist, and try to understand what the fuck you are talking about. Or, just move out to the suburbs where you belong. 

blue sculpture Burling Street Lincoln Park fantastic novak construction art artwork john henry world music graffiti artist painting design paint drawing photography poetry cool school artistic beauty statue architecture carving creative drawings existence expression sculptor visual

Sound

A couple of years ago I went to the premiere of Capitalism: A Love Story (2009) by Micheal Moore at the AMC. After the movie there was a question and answer session with Micheal Moore who was in attendance. A film student asked the question, "What should I pay attention to?" Mr Moore thought for a moment and said, sound.  He explained that it is easy to get wrapped up in the visual aspect of film making, when often the narrative is told more by the audio track than by the visual track.

When I shot my Sunrise video the other morning I came back and found I was lacking for a sound track. So this morning I have been shopping audio recorders on the internet. I settled on the RCA $29.99 unit to the left. There are many more expensive units on the market, but I'm not a pro audio guy.  I just need a few leaves rustling & birds chirping.

The first video I ever edited was The El Camino Diaries, back in 1999. It was shot on Hi-8 tape. That's analog. Back then I had to bump off the video to digital with a special PCI video card. It was not a standard setup and everything took forever. Nowadays just about anybody can shoot and edit video using their home  computer and a smartphone.

The first edit of "The El Camino Diaries" had to be shit canned.  I was trying to edit around the visual track.  It didn't work.  So I set up my camera and sat down and recorded the narrative by just telling a story. The rest was easy.  Once I had that audio track down the rest just fell into place.

North Halsted Halloween Parade - Chicago 2011

Man did I have a blast last night. I headed out early before the Halloween parade. There was a queue for the parade participants at Halsted and Belmont.  With my YouTube hat and credential packet I was able to walk into the queue like I owned the place.  Several people asked me if I worked for YouTube. I said, No they work for me.


A Chicago cop moved a barricade for me.  When the parade started they wouldn't let the general public onto the parade route, but they gladly let me through.  I think I've stumbled onto something here.  I'm now a part of the Third Estate!






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